Sokka found him on the floor of their kitchen, legs spread beneath their uneven table, gulping down a bottle of Uncle's dragon spit.

"Zuko?" Sokka left his bag by the door. "Dude, what's going on?"

Zuko took another long swig of the sweet, burning liquid. "Okay, listen. I know this may seem out of nowhere, but I want you to tell me what happened to your mother."

Sokka's eyes shuttered. Slowly, he slid down the counter until they were shoulder to shoulder on the floor. Reaching over, he grabbed the bottle from Zuko and took a swig of his own.

For a while they just drank.

"It's not a day I like to remember."

"When was it?" Zuko breathed.

"A little over ten years ago."

Zuko winced. Around the time his father had come into power.

"You remember she worked for Phoenix Industries? Well, she wasn't just a factory worker," Sokka said. "She was some higher up's assistant. Got some pretty good benefits but terrible hours." Another swallow of spit. "Katara spent more time with her than I did, she would stay up with dad waiting for her to get home. One morning, she kissed both of us on the way out. It was pretty normal except..." He took a shuddering breath. "I want to say I noticed something was different, that I could sense something was wrong, but I had no idea. Then she just...never came home."

"Did they say what had happened to her?" Zuko prompted.

"Some kind of mugging gone wrong." Sokka wiped an arm across his nose. "She'd been on her way back. Wasn't more than three streets away. We were all asleep in our beds while our mother was murdered a couple hundred yards off."

Zuko stayed quiet, understanding the weight of grief. He turned away when his roommate's eyes began brimming with tears.

"She was killed by the very types of people she was trying to save," Sokka said, his voice choked. "They didn't know. They saw the Phoenix emblem and they just...They didn't understand that she was changing things. She always told us she was working on something, something that was going to save everyone."

Zuko took the offered bottle and gulped down a mouthful before passing it back to Sokka to finish it off.

"I thought about giving up on the city," Sokka said. "You've seen how Katara treats Industry workers. If that was how it treated people who cared for it, was it even worth saving?"

Nodding gently, Zuko understood. After what he'd witnessed the last couple of weeks, he could understand that mindset.

"But then I met you."

Sitting upright, Zuko looked over in shock. Sokka was sliding his finger in tight circles around the lip of the bottle.

"You had seen the darkest edges of the industry, lived through the grunt work, and you wanted to make a change. You reminded me of her." Sokka again sniffed, tears leaking down his tanned cheeks. He took in a single, shaking breath through his mouth. "Sometimes it hurts more to hope, and it hurts more to care, but we don't give up."

The phrase was vaguely familiar. Zuko tried to remember where he'd heard it before. Maybe Uncle? It sounded like something he would say.

"Maybe you can succeed where she failed." Sokka shrugged. "I always thought we needed more people like her in the world."

"I...I appreciate that, man." Not really sure what else to do, Zuko clapped his roommate on the shoulder. After a moment he worked up the courage to ask, "Did she mention anything about a deadline?"

"A deadline?" Sokka asked.

"Or waiting period?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. At least, not that I can remember. Why?"

"I'm not quite sure." Zuko frowned. Something wasn't right, something that had to do with Katara and Sokka's mother. He had to figure out what was going on and alert the Painted Lady immediately.

Katara's day had only gone downhill after Zuko's impromptu departure. They'd had a pop quiz, one of her professors was sick and the substitute had been horribly incompetent, and she'd had to forgo lunch in order to meet a project deadline that had been moved up. Hangry Katara was a dangerous Katara.

Luckily, there was a vending machine at the hospital she used to purchase a sandwich. She was just chowing down on the best ham and cheese she'd ever tasted when Ty Lee came into the break room.

"Hey, Ty!" Katara spoke through a mouthful, already feeling exponentially better. "It's been a while, how have you been?"

The pink girl groaned before falling face first onto the couch.

"That bad?"

From what Katara could determine from the muffled response, it didn't sound positive.

"You want to talk about it?"

More muffled speech.

"I'm sorry, I don't speak couch."

That got a soft chuckle out of her. Just then, the door swung open and Dr. Pakku entered.

"Ah, Katara. Just who I was looking for," he said. "They're a little short in the ER tonight so I volunteered your hands, I hope that's okay?"

"Of course!" Katara smiled and shrugged a shoulder. Pakku gave her a strange look then left. When Katara faced Ty Lee again, she had rolled to the side and was giving her the same look.

"What?" Katara asked.

"You met a boy, didn't you," Ty Lee guessed.

Katara blushed. "What makes you say that?"

"You're kind of..." She fluttered her fingers in Katara's direction. "Sparkling."

Katara placed her hands against her burning cheeks. "I'm not sparkling."

"Yes, you are." Ty Lee's smile grew. "Do I know him? Is he cute? Are you officially dating?"

She'd never done boy talk before. There hadn't been time or even interest, and Katara would be lying if she said she wasn't a little bit excited to share in the new experience.

"You do, actually, and I happen to think he's very attractive." She couldn't contain her smile that arose from thinking about him. "As far as dating goes..." She thought about their plan to hang out the next day and the promise of lunch with chopstick training. "We haven't really gotten to talk out all the details yet."

"Well, spill girl! Are we talking tall, dark, and handsome? Is he a doctor? A student?" Ty Lee wrinkled her nose. "It's not a patient, right?"

"No!" Katara insisted, laughing lightly. Tucking her chin down she said a little shyly, "It's Zuko."

Ty Lee sat up. "No it's not."

"Yes," Katara squealed. Then she noticed that her friend wasn't joking like she'd originally thought.

"You can't," Ty Lee continued. Her face had gone a ghostly white, her breathing shaky. "You need to stay away from him."

"What?" Katara's brows pulled together. "What do you mean?"

"You don't understand, Katara." The pink girl was shaking her head. "Those two will do whatever they have to in order to get what they want. They're like dragons hoarding their treasure and destroying anything that stands in their way."

"Two? Do you mean his sister?" Katara prompted.

"I need you to promise me." Ty Lee leaned forward from her place on the couch to clasp hands with Katara. "Promise me you won't see him again."

Katara searched her eyes, trying to find truth, but all she saw was fear and panic. "I can't do that."

"He's dangerous," she insisted again.

Katara pulled her hands from her grip, her mouth in a firm line. "Not to me."

She thought starting off the shift hangry had been bad, but the night only got worse. After her conversation with Ty Lee, Katara had a bad taste in her mouth and a knot in her stomach that just wouldn't go away. On top of that, it wasn't uncommon while working the ER to have a couple of major emergencies with a trickle of disasters, but tonight put all of her previous experiences to shame. There was a constant influx of people. Some had been beaten within an inch of their lives, others were cut up with knives, but all of them refused to speak about what had happened to them.

No matter how Katara pleaded with them, insisted that she could help, they kept tight-lipped. She treated wound after wound, tended to those who had been drug in unconscious, and even helped remove a rather large piece of glass from a man's thigh.

Not everyone made it.

She hadn't been this covered in blood since she'd tended to the Blue Spirit, and the night wasn't even half over. She ended up having to change into her spare pair around 2:30 a.m., about the time she had been scheduled to go home, and continued working.

The only trend she could find in the wounded was that most of them were arriving from the South Bend. One man was still screaming when he'd arrived and they'd had to sedate him. Something about the walls cracking and vultures swooping upon remains. None of it made any sense. Where were all of these people coming from? And why wouldn't they tell her what was going on?

It wasn't until Pakku arrived a couple of hours later that he forced her to leave. On her way home, things finally started to become clear.

The South side of the island, the apartment buildings and stores she'd walked by on her way into the hospital, looked like they'd gotten into a fight with a skyscraper and lost. Windows were shattered, doors broken down, houses and businesses abandoned. Vans emblazoned with the Phoenix logo could be seen on every street. Whatever had happened seemed to have stopped with the sunrise, but there were still many who wore cloaks or hoods picking around the bones of the decimated housing. Furniture was tossed aside, items of the recently homeless stacked in a pile that was burning in the center of the road.

Vultures. The figures were spread out, their heads tilted down as if they were searching for something. Were they looking for the Painted Lady? Had they finally figured out that she returned to this part of the city? If they had followed her...she would have led them right back to the bakery.

Fear gripped her heart and she started running. Her hospital shoes slid through the cement dust covering the streets. Sweat dripped through her hair down the back of her neck.

Why would they act now? Phoenix Industries already had control of seventy percent of the island. What could they possibly gain from this level of an invasion? Did they really think they were going to get away with this?

There were a few more wounded that she passed but she didn't stop. The skeletons of apartments gave way to fully intact structures quite suddenly. Immediately next to a hallowed out grocery store was an open post office. It was as if whatever monster that had been stomping through their streets had decided it was time to return home for supper.

Her anxiety let up just slightly, but her pacing never faltered. She had to check, had to make sure. Not all of South Bend had been destroyed, but how was she to know what had survived? It was about five minutes later that the bakery came into view. The first floor's lights were on, that was a good sign. Pushing through the main door, her shoes squeaked to a stop on the tile.

"Dad?!" she yelled. "Dad, are you here?"

"Sugarplum." His weak voice carried down from the second floor. Katara dropped her bag and took the steps three at a time, vaulting into their living room and falling at her father's feet. He was seated on the couch. She looked over him, her hands sliding down in a head to toe check. Everything seemed normal.

"Are you hurt?" she asked. "What did they do to you?"

Hakoda was shaking his head, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "They're taking everything, Katara."

It took a second for her mind to catch up. He wasn't hurt. The bakery hadn't been caught in whatever catastrophe had struck the rest of their sector. But something was definitely wrong.

"What are you talking about?"

He pointed to a paper resting on their coffee table. "The loan. They've moved up the deadline. They're within their rights to take the bakery. Everything I have. Everything your mother and I built..." He swallowed. "I'm about to lose it all."

Katara got closer, looking over the letter stamped with the official Industry seal. So that was what was happening in the town. The industry was slowly taking over the entire South Bend. Her chest pulled tight. She had to clear her throat before she could speak, "It's...it's okay, Dad. We'll figure something out. I'll see if there's something we can do."

"We will, Sugarplum." He rubbed his thumb across her cheek. "I love you more than anything. You and your brother are my entire world. As long as we have each other, we'll be okay."

She agreed, of course she did, but she still couldn't bring herself to smile as her father pulled her into his arms for a hug.

Zuko wanted to feel productive, but for some reason his classes just didn't hold the same value they'd provided for him before. If he had to spend his time doing something other than researching more about his grandfather Azulon and finding out what this deadline was, he wouldn't be sitting at a desk listening to old men tell him a lot of stuff he already knew. He'd be with Katara.

He annoyed his classmates with his constant tapping against tables and his feet marching hidden beneath his desk. He ran through what he knew:

His father had some deadline he needed to meet in the next week or so. Once said deadline was completed, he would gain control of the mainland resources including manpower and machinery. Before the deadline could be reached, he needed South Bend to be emptied. The Painted Lady was his biggest threat, to the point where he'd ordered her death. She had something he needed. The waterbending scroll? And finally, the missing piece that had to do with Kya, Sokka and Katara's mother.

By the time his classes were over, he hadn't heard a single word and his head was pounding. All he wanted to do was curl up in his bed for a power nap until he was supposed to see Katara at the Jasmine Dragon.

As his key turned, Zuko became aware of a faint beating coming from the other side of the door. Is somebody playing music? He opened the door to be hit by the bass line of a recently released pop song. Someone was BLASTING music. His eyes strayed to the kitchen and he had to bite his lip.

KATARA was blasting music while baking something and wearing his bright pink apron.

And she was dancing.

He just caught her voice over the din, singing along with the melody. Zuko covered his mouth to keep from laughing and exposing his presence. Katara continued swaying her hips and line dancing along the counter appearing to be having the time of her life. Zuko quietly set his bag next to the door and took the few steps that brought him to the kitchen doorway. Katara had started to salsa with her feet while she mixed the batter by hand, still singing, and Zuko used his phone to start taking a video.

It wasn't until she moved to set the bowl in the sink and twirled that she noticed Zuko leaning against the doorway filming her.

"Zuko!" she cried, her face flaming with a blush. "Are you recording?!"

"Don't stop," he pleaded with a grin. "We're almost to the chorus."

She rolled her eyes and he thought it was over when she suddenly resumed, belting the words to a wooden stirring spoon microphone.

His smile was unrestrained. He couldn't resist her. Holding the phone up, he joined her in the shot and proceeded to sing with her into the spoon.

By the time the song was over, they had both fallen to the floor spattered with raw batter and laughing hysterically.

"So, tell me," Zuko said once he'd finally caught his breath. "What are you baking?"

"Just some brownies." She shrugged. "I thought I'd try it since you said it helps."

Zuko's eyebrows pulled together. "What do you mean? What did I say? Chocolate?"

She chuckled. "Yes, but no. Baking." Suddenly, she couldn't seem to meet his eyes as she played with the ties of his apron. "You said you bake when you're upset."

He sat up against the counter. "You're upset?" The position reminded him of his conversation with Sokka the night before which did not bode well. Then he remembered.

Her dad. The seizure.

He slung an arm across her shoulders and pulled her close against his side, tucking her head beneath his chin.

"There were so many people, Zuko," she whimpered, rubbing her face into his shirt.

He pulled her closer against his side. "I heard about the evictions," he said. "I was going to tell you this evening about my meeting. I talked to Sokka and we want your dad to come stay with us. Suki said she would take you."

"It's not just evictions." She shook her head. "They were...looking for something. Throwing people out of their houses. Literally. I treated more than fifty people for serious injuries." Her voice was quiet. "I couldn't...I couldn't save them all."

"Katara." He pushed her back so that he could see her face and brushed some strands behind her ears. "It's not your fault."

"I don't know what to do," she cried.

"We'll figure it out together, okay?" he said. "You don't have to carry it all yourself."

Her tears continued to fall. "I think..." she paused. "I think they were looking for the Painted Lady." Her eyes were a steely grey, flat, and definitely lacking the light he'd seen in them just a moment earlier. She looked broken. He wished he knew how to fix her.

"I'm sure you did everything you could." Even to himself he sounded dumb. "There's nothing you could have done differently."

"I know." She nodded. "But you can," she insisted. "I had trouble understanding, but you need to go back, Zuko. You need to fix this. You can."

"I will," he promised, hugging her again. "I'll do everything I can. I'm not going to let anything happen to you." He stroked her hair as she continued to cry. "I've got you."

She cried longer than she'd planned to, considering she hadn't planned on crying at all, and Zuko held her through it all. The last time she'd broken like this had been when her mother died. Ever since then, she'd been the one holding up her brother and her father. Now Zuko was taking them in, telling her he was going to protect her. He even remembered to grab her brownies out of the oven after he helped her up. They were a little overdone, but still edible. The chocolate did make her feel a little bit better.

Zuko had forced her to sit and eat one while he washed the dishes which almost made her cry again. Despite his insistence that she needed time to rest, Katara assured him that keeping busy would be best for keeping her from thinking about everything that was going on.

That was why they were currently sitting in the tea shop with two steaming cups of tea and textbooks spread across their regular table. The difference is that this time, instead of across from her, Zuko was sitting beside her, his bouncing knee bumping gently against her own. His inability to remain still which had bothered her before was now added to the long list of his adorableness. It was a nice change of pace, the two of them working silently on their own sections of their project.

And then a third person plopped into the empty seat beside them.

Katara glared at the intruder. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I'm chaperoning," Sokka insisted with crossed arms, glaring right back at his sister.

"We don't need a chaperone, Sokka." Katara rolled her eyes. "We are adults-" she gestured between Zuko and herself- "Who are studying-" she motioned to the table stacked with their textbooks- "In PUBLIC." Her hands waved wildly around the air to indicate the crowded tea shop. "And anyways, since when were you deemed responsible enough to play chaperone?"

"Since my baby sister and best friend decided to lose their minds," Sokka shot back.

"Baby?!" she demanded. "Ever since Mom died, I did all the work around the house, and it sounds like Zuko's been the one picking up after you ever since I left. Have you ever smelled your dirty socks? Let me tell you: NOT. Pleasant." Looking down, she noticed the tea in their mugs had started to shiver and she took a deep breath. "And we haven't lost our minds. We just decided that we enjoy spending time together, enough so that we want to go on doing it."

"Well, stop it," Sokka said, then crossed his arms. "It gives me the oogies."

Zuko snorted a laugh into his hand.

"The oogies?" Katara raised an eyebrow before shaking her head. "Look, Sokka, we get to decide what we spend our time doing and who with, and we've decided to spend it together so just...deal with it."

"If I have to deal with it, then you can just deal with my chaperoning," Sokka countered.

It was a fight to keep a straight face watching the ping pong match of sibling rivalry occurring in front of him. It was difficult to listen to Katara defend their relationship without knowing just how much of a risk she was actually taking. Then again, Sokka's defense had been 'oogies'.

"You're impossible," she grumbled, and got up. "I'm getting more tea."

As soon as she was three steps away, Sokka punched him.

"Ow!" Zuko rubbed his arm. "What was that for?"

"You didn't tell her," Sokka accused.

"And what is it I'm supposed to be telling her?" Zuko asked.

"That you're gay."

Zuko wasn't sure how his roommate said that with a straight face. "I told you I'm not doing that."

"You were supposed to figure it out," Sokka insisted. "What you're doing is stupid and dangerous."

"I know, but..." Zuko's eyes travelled to Katara. She was leaning against the counter with her back towards them talking to Iroh. "She was very convincing."

When he turned back, Sokka was giving him a withering look. "Dude."

"I told her I wasn't a good fit for her, I tried!"

"You didn't try hard enough," he insisted. "Didn't you tell her you weren't interested?"

"That would have been a lie."

"And about your need to focus on the industry? The knowledge that they might send someone after you?"

"I might have...left that part out," Zuko said.

Sokka punched his arm again.

"What was I supposed to do, man? I really like your sister."

"She's too good for you."

"You think I don't know that?" Zuko shot back.

"So stop this before something really bad happens," Sokka said.

"I don't know how," Zuko answered honestly. "I can't just break up with her, we have a class together and I live with her brother."

"That's exactly why there are rules about these things!" Sokka shrieked.

"I don't know what to tell you, Sokka," Zuko said. "I want to keep hanging out with Katara. She...she makes me feel stronger, and I know I can protect her."

"I hate to be the wet blanket, but since Katara's indisposed, I guess it's up to me." He caught eyes with his best friend. "You can't promise that," he said. "You can't. You don't know what your father has planned. My dad is about to spend the next couple of weeks on our couch and you expect me to be fine with you putting a target on her back? No." He leaned back. "It has to end."

"It's not as easy or simple as it sounds," Zuko said. "I'm sorry about what happened with your dad. You think it doesn't hurt me to see your family go through this? I'm trying to fix it!"

"This isn't something you can just fix, Zuko" Sokka replied. "This is Katara. And if she breaks, I'll be the one picking up the pieces."

The thought of Katara breaking on his behalf had Zuko rubbing his chest in discomfort. "That's the last thing I want."

"So fix your company, figure out what's going on with your dad, clear your name with the Agni Kais, fulfill your destiny..." Sokka waved his arm across the table then pointed between his eyes. "But do that first. Then you can see about getting together with my sister."

Zuko grit his teeth. He was right, of course he was right, but he couldn't just end it now. Not when they'd gotten so much closer. He remembered how fragile she had seemed on the floor of their kitchen.

"I know that I shouldn't, but I can't just walk away from her," he said. "Not with everything that's going on."

Sokka's eyes flashed with anger then narrowed. Before he could start, Zuko noticed a blue dress in the corner of his eye.

"Whatever you're going to say, save it," he muttered. "She's coming back."

The boys were quiet as she slumped back into her chair. "Anything more you wanted to add about how stupid we are to be studying together?"

"You've made it very clear that nothing I have to say will make a difference," Sokka said. "And now that you've got Zuko singing the same tune, it seems I have no choice."

A hand gripped Zuko's under the table and squeezed.

"So I guess...to show my surrender-" Sokka pulled out two stubs of paper- "I've got some tickets to a play for you."

Zuko's eyebrows rose. Was he really encouraging them to go somewhere alone? And a play?

Katara must have had the same suspicions. "What play?"

Sokka shrugged. "Some production a friend of Suki's put together. Supposed to be really well done. She gave me a couple of tickets to share with anyone who might be interested."

"And you think we'd be interested?" Katara continued in her suspicious tone.

"Do you want the olive branch or not?" Sokka demanded. Zuko snatched up the tickets.

"We'll be happy to take them," he said. "Thank you."

"Doesn't mean we're going, though," Katara muttered.

Sokka shrugged again like it didn't matter. "Perfect, I didn't actually want you two going together anyway. Zuko can use the second ticket for whoever he wants."

It wasn't the right time, but Zuko's stomach swirled happily at Katara's jealous blush. "Why would he take anyone else?" She gritted out.

Zuko leaned over to whisper in her ear, "He's just trying to bait you."

"Whatever," she huffed. "Stay if you want to. We have work to do."

"I think I've said all I needed to say." Sokka stood, his eyes catching Zuko's. "I'll see you at home."